India has the largest number of anaemic population globally and continues to be a major health problem in the country. Scaled up along with the POSHAN Abhiyaan, Anaemia Mukht Bharat aims to reduce anaemia prevalence by three percentage points every year among children, adolescents and women of reproductive age by 2022. Malnutrition outcomes such as stunting and anaemia severely affect physical and cognitive growth and pose a huge burden on economic productivity. Anaemia impairs India's growth, productivity and demographic dividend thus affecting overall GDP. Anaemia during pregnancy can put the baby at higher risk of developing anaemia later in infancy and can also put the woman at greater risk of having a pre-term delivery or a low-birth weight baby.
